03/05, 11:17am

Visually pleasing while putting weather in context with your life.

There are places in the world where the weather is extreme, but people who live there know how to deal with it. There are places in the world where weather remains constant, except for certain parts of the year when everybody freaks out. No matter where you live, there are a few things you can be sure of. Two of them are that the sun rises and sets, and that atmospheric conditions will create some kind of environment people may or may not need to prepare for. Fresh Air by Backcountry Studios, seeks to take a topic most people see as banal, the weather, and put it in context with what's going on in your life.

02/23, 11:33pm

Sound generator promises to help block out unwanted noise

Sometimes it's hard to stay calm in a world of constant noise. We hear it in our morning commutes, we hear it in the office place, we hear it as we're out running errands. If you're looking for a way to get away from the noise, but you aren't looking to invest in a pair of expensive noise-cancelling headphones, you've got a few options. Sure, playing music helps, but that can often be every bit as distracting as environmental noises. If you're looking for a way to tune out distractions, we recommend you take a look at Rainy Mood by Plain Theory, a high-quality, calming sound generator.

12/29, 6:07pm

Overall carbon footprint down 27 percent over last eight years

On Monday, Apple updated its previously-released 2014 Environmental Responsibility Report and its Environmental Initiatives website with new figures covering both fiscal 2013 and some revised figures from fiscal 2012. Due to a recalculation of energy use in 2012, the company now says it reduced carbon emissions for that year by three percent -- and that while energy use overall has increased 44 percent since fiscal 2011, the carbon footprint has been offset dramatically by the use of renewable resources.

04/22, 1:21am

Apple stores adding green to 'leaf' in Apple logo for Earth Day

Continuing with the various environmentally-themed disclosures on Monday, Apple has begun decorating its Apple Stores for Earth Day on Tuesday by adding green gels to the "leaf" portion of the Apple logo on some stores. The changeover is happening worldwide, with pictures of the modified logo appearing from China and Australia that also include employees in green-colored work shirts.

04/21, 10:07pm

Non-functioning units will be recycled, recent working units can be exchanged for gift cards

Continuing its multi-pronged and environmentally-minded publicity push on Monday, Apple has also initiated a new program that will turn all Apple Stores into recycling centers, accepting all used Apple devices either for free (in the case of non-functional and older devices) or in exchange for a gift card (for newer, functional units). The new plan is part of an effort to reduce the company's "footprint" in terms of manufacturing pollution, and keep more of its electronics out of landfills.

03/28, 2:36pm

2013 Supplier Responsibility summary builds on previous successes

Apple has updated its Supplier Responsibility report, highlighting both continuing improvement and pointing out new initiatives designed to further improve conditions and social issues along its supply chain. Apple reports it achieved 95 percent compliance among all suppliers in limiting workers to a maximum 60-hour work week in 2013, and the company has doubled the number of factories offering free worker education and development programs. The company is also now training additional environment, health and safety (EHS) personnel for its workplaces.

02/18, 2:40pm

Major tech companies wield influence on American government

Google increased the amount it spent on lobbying the US government 90 percent year-over-year in 2012, according to data compiled by Fortune. The company ended up spending $18.22 million, easily beating out any other American technology firm. Microsoft, in fact, came in second place with $8.09 million, despite likewise increasing its spending. Other major tech businesses that funneled more money toward lobbying last year included HP, Facebook, and Amazon.

01/13, 5:53pm

Google buys $200M stake in west Texas wind farm

Adding to the search giant's existing renewable energy portfolio, Google last week announced a $200 million investment in a wind farm in west Texas. Google's nearly quarter-billion dollar investment in the Spinning Spur Wind Project is the company's eleventh green energy investment since 2010. It is also one of Google's larger renewable energy investments, second only to the $280 million the company pumped into SolarCity, a solar systems company.

10/16, 6:59pm

iFixit accuses EPEAT of 'greenwashing'

In a caustically-worded piece, the CEO of iFixit has decried both the EPEAT environmental certification program and Apple's Retina MacBook Pro in particular, claiming that the former's Gold certification of the latter constitutes "greenwashing," or a form of spin in which deceptive marketing is used to portray a product as environmentally friendly. He claims that EPEAT bent the definitions of its own rules in order to grant Gold status to Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as well as several other "ultrabook" class devices from other makers. The result, he contends, is that the EPEAT is ultimately weaker, compromised to a degree that could bring the technology industry to an inflection point, with significant implications for the environment.

10/03, 5:49pm

Generally, phones becoming less toxic

Mobile phones are being built using fewer toxic chemicals than were their predecessors, and Apple's iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, along with many other newer phone models, are among the least toxic to have been released in more than a decade. This according to a new report out from iFixit and HealthyStuff.org. The two sites performed chemical analyses on 36 phones, finding that Apple's two newest models ranked in among the five least toxic, along with models from Samsung and Motorola.

05/21, 10:03pm

Applying knowledge of cooling to buildings

Some details revealed about how Apple intends to make its Maiden, North Carolina data center almost entirely powered from renewable-energy sources have come to light, showing a combination of solar and fuel-cell technology and practical energy-saving policies. The plans show that the company behind the iMac are also applying some cooling lessons learned from computers to the buildings, such as variable-speed fans.

03/30, 8:40pm

Group credits iPad with helping drive emissions

The activist group Greenpeace has publicly blasted the iPad and Dell over different environmental issues. The organization labels the iPad one of many "quintessential cloud computing devices" that are credited with driving the technology industry's demand for dirty coal power.

10/06, 7:25pm

Chamber says bill could cause US job losses

The US Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday took a jab at Apple over the company's recent protest resignation from the business group. In a letter to the company's chief executive, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that Apple's resignation over the Chamber's lack of support for environmental legislation was premature and misguided.

07/09, 7:05pm

Greenpeace pans iPhone 3G

Greenpeace is again calling Apple out on its environmental practices, citing that the iPhone 3G uses the same toxic building materials that it found in its breakdown of the original device. Casey Harrell, International Toxics Campaigner for Greenpeace, released a note on Wednesday saying he believes that, while the company has made large strides with reducing hazardous materials in its iMac and portable computers, the iPhone 3G remains largely unchanged.

06/03, 5:25pm

WebScripter 2.0

The Alchemist Guild has announced the release of WebScripter 2.0, a new release of the integrated development environment (IDE) for programming in several popular web scripting languages such as: PERL, PHP, CSS, HTML/XML, JavaScript and Ruby. The tool offers features including: text editing, previewing web pages, testing scripts, managing projects, navigating code and FTP integration. The developer says that in this release, the original concept was scrapped and redesigned from the ground up with a modern OS X GUI using tabs for editing and split views for integrating features into a single window. The new design is "compact, concise and helps to keep the user in close contact with the experience. WebScripter 2.0 is priced at $40.

05/09, 2:30am

Apple last in industry

Apple has been ranked the worst among all major PC vendors and other large electronic firms in the fight against climate change. Climate Counts this week released its second annual Company Scorecard hoping to create a "simple, easy-to-understand ranking of companies would motivate both companies and consumers to step-up their efforts on climate change." Apple was ranked in last place among the list of 12 electronics companies, while companies such as IBM, Canon, Toshiba, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard were near the top of the electronics industry. Top honor went to Nike, which passed last year’s high scorer, Canon, to become the top scored company among the 56 companies evaluated. Apple was the only electronic company to receive a "Stuck" designation, with a recommendation as a choice to "avoid for the climate-conscious consumer," because the company has taken "meaningful action against climate change."